floor 'ground'

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

The topic of "ground versus floor" was discussed in a Q&A at the
Grammarphobia Blog of Patricia T. O'Conner and Stewart Kellerman in
2009 with a follow-up in 2012:

Website: Grammarphobia
Article title: Is it the floor or the ground?
Date: April 4th, 2009
http://bit.ly/1u2ORy2
http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2009/04/is-it-the-floor-or-the-ground.html

[Begin excerpt]
Q: I was waiting on hold to speak with you on WNYC, but I never made
it on the air. I wanted to comment on the use of "floor" vs. "ground."
My husband, in particular, has a pet peeve about the use of “floor”
outside where it should be "ground."

A: Others have asked the same question, so this must be a trend!

Normally, the floor is what you walk on inside a building, and the
ground is what you walk on outside. I too find it jarring to hear the
words "floor" and "ground" used interchangeably.
[End excerpt – the discussion continued on the website - link given earlier]


A follow-up article was published in December 2012:

Website: Grammarphobia
Article title: Supporting language
Date: December 4th, 2012
http://bit.ly/1uLyuDM
http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2012/12/supporting-language.html


On Fri, Sep 26, 2014 at 4:41 AM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      floor 'ground'
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> from Chris Hansen on a Facebook lgbt group:
>
> To the linguists among us: Arnold and Chris [Waigl] among many others. =
> I've noticed recently that some people now use "floor" to mean "ground", =
> as in "He was walking down the street and suddenly fell to the floor." =
> Another FB friend in another group (the Empress of Washington Post's =
> Style Invitational devotees, if you must know) has never heard this =
> usage. I've searched but my Googling has obviously fallen victim to my =
> preconceptions because I haven't found anything useful. Does anyone here =
> have any insights on this? Perhaps some written articles? I know this =
> isn't the perfect group in which to ask this but, not being a =
> linguistics person I'd feel embarrassed to barge in on one, ask the =
> question, and then leave again once I'd found the answer. That would be =
> too much like "rubber band management". I'd be extremely grateful for =
> any thoughts.
>
> .....
>
> i'd be happy to relay responses on this list to Chris [Hansen].
>
> arnold
>
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